Elizabeth Escalona, 23, sits in a courtroom to be sentenced, in Dallas, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012. Escalona pleaded guilty on July 12, 2012, to injury to a child and is facing up to life in prison. A doctor has testified that the Texas mother glued her 2-year-old daughter's hands to a wall and beat the toddler so badly that she suffered significant brain trauma and bleeding inside her skull. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Elizabeth Escalona, 23, sits in a courtroom to be sentenced, in Dallas, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012. Escalona pleaded guilty on July 12, 2012, to injury to a child and is facing up to life in prison. A doctor has testified that the Texas mother glued her 2-year-old daughter's hands to a wall and beat the toddler so badly that she suffered significant brain trauma and bleeding inside her skull. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
FILE - This undated file handout photo from the Dallas County Sheriff's Department shows Elizabeth Escalona who admitted to beating her 2-year-old daughter and gluing her hands to a wall. Escalona pleaded guilty July 12, 2012 to injury to a child. The young mother is scheduled to be sentenced Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, and faces up to life in prison. (AP Photo/Dallas County Sheriff's Department)
Dallas police officer Abel Lopez listens to a question in front of a display showing a crime scene photo of little hand prints on a wall while testifying about his investigation at the apartment of Elizabeth Escalona, 23, not shown, in Dallas, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012. Escalona pleaded guilty July 12, 2012, to injury to a child and is facing up to life in prison. A doctor has testified that the Texas mother glued her 2-year-old daughter's hands to a wall and beat the toddler so badly that she suffered significant brain trauma and bleeding inside her skull.(AP Photo/LM Otero)
DALLAS (AP) ? A young mother of five facing prison time for beating her 2-year-old daughter and gluing the toddler's hands to a wall admitted Thursday to using drugs and alcohol while out on bond after her arrest.
Elizabeth Escalona made the admissions under cross-examination in her sentencing hearing. The 23-year-old faces up to life in prison after pleading guilty in July to injury to a child. Prosecutors are seeking a 45-year sentence.
Escalona also testified that she often doesn't tell the truth and that she lied to doctors and other experts assigned to her case. But she resisted a prosecutor's repeated efforts to label her a liar.
"I'm not a liar," Escalona said. "I have a hard time trusting people."
A day earlier, Escalona pleaded for leniency, saying she would never forgive herself what she did to her daughter.
Police say Escalona kicked her daughter, Jocelyn Cedillo, in the stomach, beat her with a milk jug, then stuck her hands to an apartment wall using an adhesive commonly known as Super Glue. Escalona's other children told authorities their mother attacked Jocelyn because of potty training problems.
Jocelyn suffered bleeding in her brain, a fractured rib, multiple bruises and bite marks, and was in a coma for a couple of days. Some skin had been torn off her hands, where doctors also found glue residue and white paint chips from the apartment wall, witnesses testified.
A state district judge will decide Escalona's punishment.
Prosecutors have portrayed Escalona as an unfit mother with a history of violence. They have played recordings in which a teenage Escalona threatened to kill her own mother. They said she was a former gang member who started smoking marijuana at age 11.
Escalona's five children ? including one born since her arrest ? are in the care of her mother, Ofelia Escalona.
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